The COVID-2019 Thread

[panama hat]

Humming along nicely . . .

[OhOh]

India detects 'double mutant' coronavirus variant in western state





By Reuters Staff


March 24, 20217:17 PMUpdated 15 hours ago

"NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has detected a “double mutant variant” of the novel coronavirus in 206 samples in the worst-hit western state of Maharashtra, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
The new variant was also detected in nine samples in the capital New Delhi, the director of the National Centre for Disease Control, Sujeet Kumar Singh, told a news conference."

India detects '''double mutant''' coronavirus variant in western state | Reuters

[Shutree]

Humming along nicely . . .

I'd be happier if Thailand were showing on that list. The edge of nowhere that is Nongbualamphu has been almost untouched by Covid, until now. It turns out a local returned from Bangkok where she sells lottery tickets to join the Nongbua festival, bringing Covid with her. The usual stuff, night market with street food and T-shirts and plants and heavy wood furniture. It lasts about a week. Street food is important, because obviously no one wears a mask while eating and anyway there has been no problem locally for a year. The governor gave a particularly confusing statement yesterday about where this Covid spreader had been and when but it seems certain she spent extended periods at the most crowded and least masked part of town. At least it was outdoors. People are suddenly worried, nonetheless.

[OhOh]

It turns out a local returned from Bangkok

Chinese ancestors?

[strigils]

this comedy gets funnier by the day. Watching a bunch of civil servants/career politicians used to a cosy life of making up policies that complicate lives and justify their own existence now donning jackboots and stomping around looking for enemies under the bed...they are everywhere i tell you

AstraZeneca plant inspected by Italian police at EU's request


Inspection is fresh sign of breakdown in relations between Brussels and Anglo-Swedish vaccine supplier


An AstraZeneca plant was inspected by the Italian police at the request of Brussels in a sign of the breakdown in relations between the Anglo-Swedish vaccine supplier and the EU.


Officers were sent into the facility in the town Anagni, east of Rome, on Saturday evening after the European commission contacted the Italian government with concerns.

AstraZeneca has been accused by the commission of overselling its ability to deliver doses and reneging on its contract with the EU after delivering less than a quarter of the 120m doses it had promised this quarter. The EU’s executive branch believes the company has unfairly prioritised its contract with the UK government.

ollowing a report in the Italian media that a stockpile of 29m doses had been discovered destined for the UK, AstraZeneca issued a statement dismissing the claim as “inaccurate”.


AstraZeneca said no exports were currently planned outside of the EU other than to developing countries via the Covax facility, and it was incorrect to describe the batches in the factory – run by the US-based company Catalent to provide vial filling and packaging – as a “stockpile”.


“There are 13m doses of vaccine waiting for quality control release to be dispatched to Covax as part of our commitment to supply millions of doses to low-income countries, the vaccine was made outside the EU and brought to the Anagni plant to be filled into vials,” the company said.


It added that a further 16m doses were waiting for quality control release before being dispatched to Europe. “Close to 10m doses will be delivered to EU countries during the last week of March, [and] the balance in April as the doses are approved for release after quality control.”


A statement from the office of the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, confirmed that the Anagni plant had been inspected at the commission’s request and that batches found were destined for Belgium.


La Stampa had reported on Wednesday that the doses – almost twice the amount the EU has so far received from AstraZeneca – were found “hidden” in the factory following a search by Italian police on Saturday at the request of the European commission, and that they were probably destined for the UK.
Draghi caused controversy this month after blocking 250,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from being exported from the Anagni plant to Australia in response to the company failing to meet its EU delivery targets.


It is at least the second time that the commission has asked national authorities to investigate AstraZeneca production facilities. In January, Belgian officials were asked to probe a plant in Seneffe, south of Brussels. EU officials were suspicious of claims by the company that the plant had problems with low yield. It has long been suspected that doses had instead been shipped on a large scale to the UK, a suspicion for which no evidence has yet emerged.

AstraZeneca plant inspected by Italian police at EU's request | Italy | The Guardian

[taxexile]

you couldn't make it up if you tried.

so aggrieved are the silly euro officials at being out ordered, out smarted and out vaccinated by the execrable brits that they send in the italian version of the keystone cops in a pathetic attempt to expose some imaginary subterfuge and punish the british swedish not for profit astra zenica
company.

EU's 'most embarrassing' day: How the story behind the vaccine factory raid unravelled.

Italian elite unit found millions of AstraZeneca doses thought to be meant for the UK - but their destination was the EU itself

By
Bill Gardner

James Crisp,
BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT and
Nick Squires
IN ROME
24 March 2021 • 7:55pm

It was an extraordinary story – the European Commission had turned detective to find AstraZeneca's secret stockpile of vaccines reserved for Britain.

During a surprise raid over the weekend, an elite unit of Italian military police acting on EU orders discovered 29 million jab doses hoarded at a factory near Rome.

The discovery appeared to confirm the EU's long-held suspicion that AstraZeneca was giving the UK special treatment, secretly exporting doses to its home country while failing to deliver on contracts agreed with Brussels.

Yet, as EU officials admitted on Wednesday, the allegation, briefed to the Continental press, simply wasn't true.

In fact, most of the doses discovered in the Italian factory were destined for the EU itself, with the remainder headed for poorer countries across the world.

One former Europe minister called it possibly the "most embarrassing day in the EU's history".


Italy's La Stampa newspaper reported that Italian officers had raided the Catalent plant in Anagni, where doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are put into vials and labelled.

The raid was carried out by the NAS, an elite unit of the Carabinieri which is part of the armed forces and usually investigates criminal syndicates suspected of counterfeiting food, wine and medicines.

After inspecting the company's records, the officers discovered the giant stockpile of 29 million doses – roughly half AstraZeneca's delivery shortfall to the EU. EU sources briefed the newspaper that the shipment was thought to be secretly bound for the UK, despite the company having fallen far short of its promised deliveries to the bloc.

Italian authorities ordered the raid after Thierry Breton, the EU's commissioner for the internal market, raised suspicions during a visit to an AstraZeneca factory in Leiden, the Netherlands, earlier this month.

The commission issued the alert after Mr Breton suggested the numbers provided by AstraZeneca executives did not add up, suggesting a discrepancy between the reported overall supply and the number of doses reported by individual AstraZeneca factories.

The raid came weeks after the Italian government blocked the export of 250,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia from the same factory under the EU's new export ban rules.


The explosive news of a "hidden" bumper cache of jabs destined for the UK was quickly picked up by newspapers across the Continent.

By mid-morning, however, the story began to unravel. British Government officials quickly insisted that supplies from the Catalent factory "haven't been coming to the UK and we are not expecting anything from there".

Mario Gargiulo, the president of European biologics for Catalent, said the inspection by the Carabinieri had found "everything in order". Soon afterwards, officials in Brussels admitted that the 29 million doses were in fact destined for AstraZeneca's plant in Belgium for onward distribution around the EU.

An Italian government official said: "On Saturday, the European Commission asked the prime minister to verify several consignments of vaccine in a production plant in Anagni.

"The Prime Minister informed the minister of health, Roberto Speranza, who arranged for the inspection to be carried out between Saturday and Sunday by the Carabinieri NAS. It emerged that the inspected batches were destined for Belgium. All outgoing batches were inspected."

AstraZeneca later said 16 million of the doses were "waiting for quality control release to be dispatched to Europe", while the other 13 million were to go to countries in the Covax vaccine-sharing scheme for developing countries.

A spokesman said there were "no exports currently planned other than to Covax countries", adding that it was "incorrect to describe this as a stockpile".

"The process of manufacturing vaccines is very complex and time-consuming. In particular, vaccine doses must wait for quality control clearance after the filling of vials is completed," the spokesman said.

Mr Breton later told the BBC that he had asked for the raid to ensure everything was on track and it had been "helpful to understand what was happening in Italy".


But Bruno Maçães, Portugal's former Europe minister, called it possibly "the most embarrassing day in EU history".

"So Italian police raids a vaccine factory at suggestion of commission to find out these are vaccines for a global initiative aimed at providing equitable access to vaccines for some of the world's poorest regions? I think we're going to need an explanation of why Italian military police burst into a vaccine factory on false grounds," he added.

However some EU officials were refusing to give up on Wednesday night, revealing that the commission had asked AstraZeneca for additional information about where the active ingredient in the vaccine vials found in Italy had been manufactured.

Brussels sources indicated that the commission suspects that some of the drug substance sent to the Italian plant for packaging could have been produced in the much-scrutinised Halix plant in the Netherlands.

So far the plant has not delivered vaccine doses to the EU because it does not have authorisation from European Medicines Agency. Member state officials have questioned why the approval process has not yet been completed, while the company has insisted it is "on track".

On Wednesday, AstraZeneca would only say that the vaccine doses had been brought from "outside the EU" to be packaged at the Italian plant.

Other EU officials cast doubt over the doses reported by AstraZeneca to be destined for the Covax scheme, which the EU has exempted from any export bans. One told the Financial Times of suspicions that shipments "go to some Covax countries to then be redirected to richer countries".

However, Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's trade commissioner, was unequivocal and said the bloc would not impose any export restrictions on Covax, which plans to distribute two billion doses to poorer and middle income countries before the end of the year.

EU's 'most embarrassing' day: How the story behind the vaccine factory raid unravelled

had your jab yet enema splat?

[misskit]

Covid deaths on the rise again globally amid warning 'worst yet to come' for some countries

Covid-19 deaths have started to rise again around the world as the third wave of the virus takes hold amid warnings that - for some countries - the “worst is yet to come”.

The resurgence of the pandemic, after a sustained lull earlier this year, is being driven by particularly horrifying numbers in parts of the world like Brazil.


The country reported 3,000 daily deaths on Tuesday and is close to reaching 300,000 deaths in total from the virus, a toll surpassed only by the United States.


“We are close to or facing a catastrophe,” a bulletin from the Brazilian medical research institution, Fiocruz, read last week, adding that intensive care occupancy is above 90 per cent across half of its 26 states. The country’s health system is “living through the worst collapse in history”, it added.


Brazil’s leader President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the threat of coronavirus, and a televised address on the country’s deadliest day so far was reportedly greeted with screams of “liar” and “murderer” in the country’s biggest cities.


And while Brazil is currently the epicentre of the latest resurgence of coronavirus, the picture is worrying in a number of other regions, according to the World Health Organization’s weekly epidemiological report.


After six weeks of declining numbers of fatalities, the death rate rose by three per cent globally in the last seven days, to 60,414 in total.


Cases have been rising since the beginning of March, and this rise continued in the past week, too, WHO said, with just under 3.3 million new cases reported.


There was a “marked increase” in cases reported from South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific regions, the WHO added, and there are “concerning trends” in some countries in the African and Americas regions too.


Given the unequal roll-out of vaccinations around the globe, the ongoing impact of new, more transmissible variants of the virus, and reluctance in many countries to shut down entirely once again, cases and death rates are likely to continue to climb.


Already, the only region to see a decline in new deaths last week was the Western Pacific, where deaths fell by nearly a third on the previous seven days.


The picture within regions remains uneven, however, with declining cases and deaths in badly-hit countries including the UK and the United States, both of which have undertaken speedy vaccination drives.


Public health experts said that the numbers showed that the worst of Covid-19 is far from behind us globally.


Professor Adam Kucharski, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, tweeted the following on Wednesday, accompanied by a graph of Brazil’s rapidly escalating daily death toll: “The worst of the pandemic is likely over in a (relatively small) number of places, but in others, there are troubling signs it’s yet to come.”


India, the eastern Mediterranean and much of east and Central Europe are also posting worrying numbers, the WHO said.


The picture in parts of South Asia is worsening particularly rapidly, the data shows.


Last week, Bangladesh posted an 86 per cent rise in the number of new deaths, with 141 new fatalities. Deaths in India also rose by 35 per cent, to 1,148 new Covid-19 deaths in the last seven days.


Other countries including Jordan, Italy and Poland also saw dramatic rises in the numbers of Covid-19 deaths last week.


In total, there have been more than 122 million coronavirus cases and at least 2.7 million deaths since the pandemic began.


Covid deaths on the rise again globally amid warning 'worst yet to come' for some countries

[thailazer]

The state of Idaho in the USA has opened up vaccine availability to anyone over the age of 16 as the demand is so low. Idaho is a very conservative state and they drank in the Trump kool-aid on the pandemic. Will have to see how the death statistics work out there.

[harrybarracuda]

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden opened his first formal news conference Thursday with a nod toward the improving picture on battling the coronavirus, doubling his original goal by pledging that the nation will administer 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of his first 100 days in office.

The administration had met Biden’s initial goal of 100 million doses earlier this month — before even his 60th day in office — as the president pushes to defeat a pandemic that has killed more than 545,000 Americans and devastated the nation’s economy.

Biden doubles goal of COVID vaccines to 200 million doses

[misskit]

Australia considers diverting COVID-19 vaccines to PNG as 'disaster' looms


CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia is considering diverting COVID-19 inoculations from its vaccination programme to Papua New Guinea (PNG) where the coronavirus is threatening to unleash a humanitarian disaster, a government source said on Friday.

PNG is due to get 588,000 doses of vaccine by June under the COVAX initiative to help poorer countries but doubts have arisen about those supplies given new restrictions imposed in producing countries as the virus spreads.


The European Union is implementing tougher vaccine export controls and has yet to respond to an Australian request that it release 1 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine that has been contracted to go to Australia, to PNG instead, the source told Reuters.


India has put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca shot made by the Serum Institute of India to meet domestic demand, which will almost certainly delay deliveries to PNG.


There is growing concern that PNG, an island nation of about 10 million people, many living in impoverished, isolated communities, can’t afford to wait.


“We have a humanitarian disaster unfolding in our backyard,” said the source, who is familiar with the thinking of the government on the issue. The source declined to be identified as he is not authorised to talk to the media.


Australia is still lobbying the EU for the 1 million doses but considering other options, the source said.

“No decision has yet been made but the government is considering sending vaccines,” said the source, who did not comment on any quantity of doses being discussed.


A government spokesman declined to comment.


‘TOO URGENT’


PNG, which was administered by Australia before its independence, has recorded more than 4,000 cases of the virus, according to figures released on Thursday.


But Australia says that tally vastly underestimates the extent of the crisis as the Pacific country does not do mass testing.


PNG’s biggest hospitals have reported that as many as 80% are coming back positive and Prime Minister James Marape has said the virus has “broken loose”.

The only vaccines PNG has received are just over 8,000 doses that Australia sent for health workers.


“The Australian government is absolutely right to be pressing the EU on this matter but the situation is too urgent to wait,” said Marc Purcell, CEO of the Australian Council for International Development, which represents aid agencies.


The Australian government now faces the politically sensitive question of whether to send PNG doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine at the early stages of its own vaccine campaign.


Biotech company CSL is due to supply Australia with 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that it has begun producing in Australia to help inoculate the entire population of about 26 million by the end of the year.


Australia has largely managed to get to grips with the coronavirus through lockdowns, distancing, contact tracing and border controls. It has reported just over 29,200 cases and 909 deaths.


Australia considers diverting COVID-19 vaccines to PNG as '''disaster''' looms | Reuters

[Joe 90]

Germany could see 100,000 infections a day if the third wave of coronavirus spreads unchecked, the head of the RKI public health institute has warned.

Random German checks and compulsory tests will be enforced on the French border, France's foreign minister says, because "the pandemic in Germany is exploding faster than they thought".

Negative tests will also be required for airport arrivals from Tuesday.

Officials fear the third wave could be more challenging than the first two.

With infections running at more than 20,000 a day, Health Minister Jens Spahn warned: "If this continues unchecked we run the risk of our health system hitting breaking point in April."

Germany is among a number of European countries where Covid infections have been rising fast this week. Cases are also up in Poland by 35%, and health officials in both countries say the spread of the UK (Kent) variant is behind the surge.

'No taboo' for French measures
France has also seen a big increase in cases, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said it will be classed as a high-risk zone. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told national radio it would mean that on the German border "random checks would be more reinforced than now, with compulsory tests and quarantine recommended".

Nineteen areas of France have been placed under lockdown and more than 4,700 people are now being treated in intensive care. The greater Paris region is one of the worst affected areas with almost 600 cases per 100,000 people. The average French incidence rate in the past week is above 200 cases, while in Germany it is 119 per 100,000 people.

[harrybarracuda]

This should worry people.

Younger Brazilians Are Dying From Covid in an Alarming New Shift

Staggering under its worst period of the pandemic, with daily records of caseloads and deaths, Brazil is facing a daunting development: a rising number of deaths among the young.

So far this month, according to government data, about 2,030 Brazilians aged 30 to 39 have died from Covid, more than double the number recorded in January. Among those in their 40s, there have been 4,150 fatalities in March, up from 1,823 in January, and for those 20-29, deaths jumped to 505 from 242.

“Before, the risk factor to dying from Covid-19 was being older, having some co-morbidity,” said Domingos Alves, a professor of medicine who’s part of the national monitoring group. “Now, the risk is being Brazilian.”

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

[harrybarracuda]

Also a worry.

The World Health Organization warned against counterfeit Covid-19 vaccines sold on the dark web during a press conference Friday.

“We urge all people not to buy vaccines outside government-run vaccination programs. Any vaccine outside these programs may be substandard or falsified, with the potential to cause serious harm,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO’s top official said the group is also aware of reports of “criminal groups” reusing empty vaccine vials and tampering with the Covid vaccines supply chain.

WHO warns against sales of counterfeit Covid vaccines on the dark web

[harrybarracuda]

The White House is weighing whether to suspend intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, in response to pressure from developing nations and subsequent support from progressive lawmakers, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

A temporary suspension of intellectual property protections would apply to all medical technologies to treat or prevent Covid-19. South Africa and India made a formal request to the World Trade Organization to waive the protections until the pandemic is over, but the issue was tabled without a resolution.

The White House convened a meeting of deputy-level policymakers on March 22, a senior administration official said, but they reached no final decision.

The White House’s review comes in response to a letter sent in late March by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging the administration to study the issue after several Democratic colleagues — including Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois — brought it to her attention. The letter has not been released to the public. But a senior aide said Pelosi supports the position of her members, who are in favor of issuing such a waiver, even on a temporary basis.

“The view is ‘We’re not safe until the world is safe,’” one of the sources said of the support from progressives on Capitol Hill.

Covid vaccine updates: White House mulls lifting intellectual property shield

[Buckaroo Banzai]

The White House is weighing whether to suspend intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, in response to pressure from developing nations and subsequent support from progressive lawmakers, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

A temporary suspension of intellectual property protections would apply to all medical technologies to treat or prevent Covid-19. South Africa and India made a formal request to the World Trade Organization to waive the protections until the pandemic is over, but the issue was tabled without a resolution.

The White House convened a meeting of deputy-level policymakers on March 22, a senior administration official said, but they reached no final decision.

The White House’s review comes in response to a letter sent in late March by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging the administration to study the issue after several Democratic colleagues — including Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois — brought it to her attention. The letter has not been released to the public. But a senior aide said Pelosi supports the position of her members, who are in favor of issuing such a waiver, even on a temporary basis.

“The view is ‘We’re not safe until the world is safe,’” one of the sources said of the support from progressives on Capitol Hill.

Covid vaccine updates: White House mulls lifting intellectual property shield

It is something that needs to be seriously considered.
Covid 19 came from a single nation , and unless it is eradicated or reduced to a level where it is not mutating at a high rate, in every country, it will again come back from a single nation but in a mutated form . So unless we want to be looking at Covid 21 and Covid 22, we better get serious, and put health safety, and the global economy ahead of pharma profits.

[strigils]

Looks like there is concern ahead of winter and how effective long term impact of vaccine are

At-risk UK groups could get Covid booster shots from September

Over-70s, health and social care workers, and those who are clinically extremely vulnerable could begin to get booster shots against new coronavirus variants as early as September, the vaccine minister has said.

Nadhim Zahawi said the first booster jabs would be given to those in the top four priority groups; those over 70, NHS workers and care home staff, and the clinically extremely vulnerable.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Zahawi also revealed that ministers were expecting up to eight different vaccines to be available in the UK by the autumn, including one jab which has the potential to protect from three different strains of coronavirus with a single dose.

A number of the hoped-for vaccines will reportedly be manufactured in the UK, a move that could relax pressure on supplies as tensions escalate with the European Union, which faces a shortage of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

When asked when the public could expect booster shots to begin, Zahawi said the most likely date would be September.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/27/covid-booster-shots-could-go-to-at-risk-groups-in-september-uk-vaccines-minister

[harrybarracuda]

Fuck me, if you've had the chinky shit you'll end up having four!

[Cujo]

Fuck me, if you've had the chinky shit you'll end up having four!

Why do you say that?

[harrybarracuda]

Why do you say that?

Because they're already having to give people three.

U.A.E. Giving Third Shot of Sinopharm Vaccine to Some - WSJ.com

[Klondyke]

WAR ON THE WEST West on brink of vaccine ‘world war’ as Putin ‘weaponizes’ Sputnik V jab to ‘attack’ the EU, warns Macron

26 Mar 2021,

THE West faces a "new world war" as Russia and China weaponise their Covid vaccines to exploit shortages in Europe, Emmanuel Macron has warned.

The French president's warning of "attacks" from Moscow and Beijing come amid an escalating vaccine war between the EU and Britain.

French president Emmanuel Macron warned of a 'new world war' over vaccines. He claimed Russia's Vladimir Putin is waging war with his vaccine exports.

In a sign of deepening divisions following the EU's supply chaos, France and Germany are both considering turning to Russia's Sputnik V jab.

But Mr Macron warned President Putin was using his vaccine to wage war on the West in an angry outburst after last night's virtual summit of EU leaders.

He said: "We are looking at a new type of world war.

"We are looking in particular at Russian and Chinese attacks and attempts to gain influence through the vaccine."

He said aggressive policies from those regimes meant the EU had to strengthen its own vaccine capabilities.

He said: "We need sovereignty in this matter. We must be able to manufacture vaccines.

"The virus will continue to be here, circulating, mutating, and we need options to deal with it.”

Mr Macron's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also accused Russia and China of using their home-grown vaccines to gain influence abroad.

It was angrily denied by the Kremlin today.

Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "We completely disagree that Russia and China are engaged in some war and abuse the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines as a certain leverage.

"Russia has never had, does not have and will never have any intentions to politicise the vaccine issue and abuse vaccines as an influence tool.

"Russia is a responsible member of the international community which is best showcased in such tough days and years as the pandemic that humanity is now going through."

Hungary and Slovakia have already started using Sputnik V, bypassing EU bureaucracy to secure their own jab supplies.

Today the German government said that it would be open to using Sputnik V once it had approval from the European Medicines Agency regulator.

And earlier this week, France's Europe secretary Clément Beaune said his country could start using it as early as June.

Mr Beaune said: “There is no need to politicise this issue. If the vaccine is useful, if it is available, then you should use it.”

West on brink of vaccine ‘world war’ as Putin ‘weaponizes’ Sputnik V jab to ‘attack’ the EU, warns Macron

[Klondyke]

WAR ON THE WEST West on brink of vaccine ‘world war’ as Putin ‘weaponizes’ Sputnik V jab to ‘attack’ the EU

Wondering why West does not ‘weaponizes’ their own vaccines, so easy to shower East, EU with the vaccines...

[harrybarracuda]

Well we already knew he was a bullshitter so no surprise there.

Facebook has frozen Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s page for violating policies against spreading misinformation about COVID-19 by promoting a remedy he claims, without evidence, can cure the disease, a company spokesman said on Saturday.

Maduro in January described Carvativir, an oral solution derived from thyme, as a “miracle” medication that neutralizes the coronavirus with no side effects, a claim doctors say is not backed by science.

Facebook freezes Venezuelan leader Maduro’s page over COVID-19 misinformation - National | Globalnews.ca

[strigils]

Cardiologist Dr Joachim Wunderlich, who has helped at a vaccination centre in Berlin, told CBS News that the bureaucratic process for people to get vaccinated in Germany was 'unbelievable'.

He added that the amount of paperwork involved was 'insane'.

'You can't expect an over-80-year-old to fill out 10 pages and numerous consent forms and ask them to call a hotline to make an appointment. And then they risk being turned away because they forgot some forms at home.'

Wunderlich continued: 'The pandemic is daunting enough, bureaucracy and data protection laws shouldn't make it even worse.'

[strigils]

^ i walked in to our local center, they asked about 5 questions and a doctor present signed a form before the nurse gave me a jab, 5 minutres max. The EU is blaming the UK for their fuk ups.

EDIT

before to book the appoinement i had to logon to book both appointments which took about 5 minutes with my NHS number, DOB and Email.

[Klondyke]

March 27, 2021
Polio was most frightening public health problems in the world. On this day in 1953 Dr. Jonas Salk announced that he has developed vaccine for it & later saved millions. You know he never patented it.

He said: "Can you patent sun? It belongs to the humanity."